Theater Group Barters Moving Services For Performance Space For Show About Moving

Faced with the unattractive and expensive prospect of raising money to find traditional spaces in which to perform, a young theater company, Rudy's Meritocracy, has turned to manual labor. The group is advertising their services as a makeshift moving company. If you hire them, they'll help you move your stuff, and after that's done they'll put on a 40 minute show about moving titled THISISMYREALLIFE in your new apartment. The group came upon the idea in part from their experiences of being 20-somethings in the city. "All our friends are moving all the time," Cordelia Istel, one of Rudy's Meritocracy's three members, told Runnin' Scared Friday. "We're two, three years out of school and have just looked at friends constantly moving and realized that provided us with empty space."

Their observations were validated, Istel explained, em>New York Times's "What Is It About 20-Somthings?" story, in which they read:

The 20s are a black box, and there is a lot of churning in there. One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year.

The play, which they did a workshop of at the Irish Repertory Theatre in November, stars Istel along with her two other company members and co-writers, Charles Gariepy and O'Hagan Blades, playing versions of themselves.

"It's about us moving into a new place and sort of playing with the various neuroses and excitement possibility that goes a long with moving and what that means in our lives" Istel said. "As were were developing it to of us were preparing to move."

Besides not having to raise the money for a theater space, another advantage to their roaming performance, Istel said, is that they can broaden their audience and perform and develop the piece over a long period of time, rather than being limited to the amount of time given to them by a theater.

The group has been having a series of preview performances of THISISMYREALLIFE in a vacant apartment, their first full-move will be on April 6, Istel explained. Then they'll help seven guys move into a loft in Bushwick.